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Five Tips for App Developers Wanting to Stand Out

Imagine you’re shopping for cereal. You want something that’s not too sweet but not too bland. Your plan is to browse the grocery store aisles and choose a brand that seems like a good fit. But when you get there, you find 60,000 options on the shelves. How do you choose?

Maybe you peek at what a stranger has in her grocery cart and opt for the same brand. But is it the best option for you? How do you know?

That is the scenario consumers face every time they enter an app store.

The shelves are stocked with tens of thousands of new titles every month. How do most of those shoppers choose the app that best fits their needs? Often, shoppers listen to peers’ suggestions.

Smart app developers know they must tap into word-of-mouth marketing (WOM) if they are to succeed in this crowded space. As developers try to quickly educate themselves on WOM and other types of marketing, they should keep the following tips in mind.

1. Remember that your competition is big, but so is your potential customer base. App stores are on track to stock as many as 700,000 new offerings or more per year; the number of consumers browsing these options is also growing. Gartner predicts the market will see one billion iPad and 2.5 billion smartphone users by 2015. That’s a lot of devices on which your app could be downloaded.

2. Make sure your product is outstanding. It might be tempting to rush to market to try to get ahead of other developers. Don’t do it. Having a great app isn’t the only element required for success in this industry, but it is the first requirement. Take the time to make sure the code is clean and the supporting content is compelling.

3. Create a clear picture of your intended customer. Do you know to whom you’re marketing? You should. Ask yourself who is most likely to enjoy and recommend your app, and on whom that typical customer will rely for app suggestions.

4. Be frugal about paid campaigns. Before you hit it big, your budget for advertising should stay small. User recommendations are often more effective and generate higher download rates. However, if you’re dead set on advertising, choose pay-per-success campaigns that charge you only when ads lead to downloads.

5. Make it easy for users to recommend your work. If your target customers are like many mobile app consumers, they use social media applications. They probably have experience reading reviews online before buying products or viewing friends’ choices of music or other entertainment. Your target customers, in other words, put a lot of stock in the advice of people in their social networks. That makes users your best marketing tool, as long as your app includes a mechanism they can use to recommend your app, such as a word-of-mouth tool. Help your customers work hard for you by giving them the means to tell others they like and use your app.